Japanese and Chinese Immigrant Activists Japanese and Chinese Immigrant Activists Organizing in American and International Communist Movements, 1919–1933 JOSEPHINE FOWLER RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW BRUNSWICK, NEW JERSEY, AND LONDON LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Fowler, Josephine Japanese and Chinese immigrant activists : organizing in American and international Communist movements, 1919–1933 / Josephine Fowler. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8135-00-5 (alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-8135-01-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Communist Party of the United States of America--History. 2. Japanese Americans--Politics and government. 3. Chinese Americans--Politics and government. Immigrants--United States--Political activity. I. Title. JK2391.C5F68 2007 32.273'75089951—dc22 2006031253 CIP A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. Copyright © 2007 by Josephine Fowler All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 100 Joyce Kilmer Avenue, Piscataway, NJ 0885-8099. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law. Manufactured in the United States of America For my mother, Nevi Unti Fowler, and my late father, Joseph William Fowler CONTENTS Illustrations ix Acronyms xi Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 PART I Origins and Beginnings 1 Historical Background 17 2 Study Groups, the Oriental Branch, and “Hands Off China” Demonstrations 31 PART II From the Top Down 3 “The Red Capital of the Great Bolshevik Republic” 63 4 Advancing Bolshevism from Moscow Outward and Back and Forth across the Pacific 74 PART III From the Bottom Up 5 From East to West and West to East 101 6 Left-wing Chinese Immigrant Activists 120 7 Chinese Workers in America 139 vii viii CONTENTS 8 Formation of the Oriental Branch of the ILD 170 Conclusion 200 Notes 207 Index 263 ILLUSTRATIONS 1 “Tikhii Okean [Pacific Ocean]” 2 2 Original members of the Reimeikai, 1921 46 3 Photographs of Benjamin J. Fee 52 4 Taiheiyo Rodosha (The Pan-Pacific Worker), vol. 1, no. 1/2 (February 1930) 85 5 “Leaders of Chinese protest meeting here,” Philadelphia Daily News, March 28, 1927 128 6 The Chinese Guide in America (weekly), edited by Mr. H. T. Tsiang 131 7 Minutes of seventh meeting of the Chinese Buro, April 5, 1929 156–157 8 “Appeal to Comrade Brothers and Sisters in America!” March 1, 1927 172 9 Nichibei strike leaders, San Francisco, 1931 197 ix ACRONYMS ADNJ Archive of the District of New Jersey, U.S. District Court, New- ark, NJ AAAIL All-American Anti-Imperialist League AACAI Chinese Anti-Imperialist Alliance of America ACWP Grand Alliance to Support Chinese Workers and Peasants Revolution AFL American Federation of Labor AWIL Agricultural Workers Industrial League AWIU Agricultural Workers Industrial Union CAWIU Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union CC Central Committee CCP Chinese Communist Party CEC Central Executive Committee CI Archive of Communist International CPGB British Communist Party CPSU Communist Party of Soviet Union CPUSA Communist Party of the United States of America CY Chinese Youth DEC District Executive Committee DEL District Executive Committee DO District Organizer EBP Earl Browder Papers ECCI Executive Committee of Communist International ECCP European Branch of the Chinese Communist Party FEB Far Eastern Bureau FWIU Food Workers Industrial Union HOC Hands Off China HTTK Hu Tang Te Kan IFTU International Federation of Trade Unions ILD International Labor Defense ILS International Lenin School IPC International Propaganda Committees ISH International Seamen and Harbor Workers xi xii LIST OF ACRONYMS ITS International Trade Union Secretariats JCG Japanese Communist Group JCP Japanese Communist Party JWA Japanese Workers Association KGYP Karl G. Yoneda Papers KIM Communist Youth International KMT Kuomintang KPL German Communist Party KSP Russian State Archives of Social and Political History, Moscow KUNMZ Communist University of National Minorities of the West KUTK Communist University of Toilers of China KUTV Communist University of the Toilers of the East LAC Local Boat Action Committee LAI Anti-Imperialist League Papers MRP International Workers Aid MUPR International Red Aid MWIU Marine Workers International Union MWL Marine Workers League MWPL Marine Workers Progressive League Narkomindel Peoples Commissariat of Foreign Affairs NBAC National Boat Action Committee NCD National Language Department NKVD People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs NLB National Language Bureau NUMCS National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards Records OMS International Communication PPTUS Pan-Pacific Trade Union Conference PPW Pan Pacific Worker RCP Russian Communist Party RGASPI Russian State Archive of Social and Political History RILU Red International of Labor Unions, Profintern RSMP Records of Shanghai Municipal Police SASYS Students’ Society for Advancement of Sun Yat-Senism in America SFCSA San Francisco Chinese Student Association SFLC San Francisco Labor Council SSTPP Society for Study of the Three Principles of the People TOST Pan-Pacific Secretariat of Transport Workers TUEL Trade Union Educational League TUUL Trade Union Unity League UTK University of the Toilers of China WCP Workers Communist Party WEB West European Bureau ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have been looking forward to the opportunity to express my thanks for a long time now. First, I am profoundly indebted to my original advisors, Sara Evans and David Roediger, and other committee members, Catherine Ceniza Choy, Erika Lee, Josephine Lee, and Peter Rachleff, who each in her or his own way encouraged, advised, and sustained me through the long process—first of com- pleting a dissertation and then of transforming the dissertation into a book. I also give special thanks to David Roediger for his support and intellectual input during the past few years of my life, which would have been immensely more difficult without his presence. I am also deeply indebted to a number of scholars whose vast knowledge of the histories of Japanese and Chinese American radicalism respectively both inspired and guided me throughout the course of my own research. In particular, I want to thank Him Mark Lai, Ben Kobashigawa, Robert G. Lee, and Chris Friday. In addition, I thank the many scholars and activists who shared sources, insights, and practical advice, including Eiichiro Azuma, James Bar- rett, Gordon Chang, Amy Chen, Carol Cuenod, Roger Daniels, Howard DeWitt, Harvey Dong, Alex Fabros, Elizabeth Faue, Glenda Gilmore, A. Tom Grunfeld, Rick Halpern, Arthur Hansen, Rebecca Hill, Peter Huber, Yuji Ichioka, Edward Johanningsmeier, Paul Jones, Tetsuro Kato, Scott Kurashige, Daniel Kwan, Peter Kwong, Nori Ikeda Lafferty, Steve Louie, Warren Mar, David Montgomery, Gary Okihiro, Yuichiro Onishi, Vernon Pedersen, Tim Rees, Dorothy Fujita Rony, Thomas Fujita Rony, Steve Rosswurm, Lisa Rubens, David Sarvis, Gloria Unti Sarvis, Noriko Sawada, Alexander Saxton, Harvey Schwartz, Toru Shinoda, Yukari Takai, Randi Jill Storch, Dean Toji, Reiner Tosstorff, Jere Takahashi, Alan Wald, Henry Yu, and again David Roediger. Thanks also to Erika Lee for making it possible for me to gain access to the libraries at Tufts University, to Michael Hanagan for inviting me to contribute an essay to a special issue of ILWCH on new approaches to global labor history, and to Sucheng Chan and Madeline Hsu for inviting me to contribute an early version of chapter 7 to a festschrift in honor of Him Mark Lai. I received generous and expert archival assistance from Janice Pilch, librar- ian for South Slavic Studies and Slavic Languages and Literatures at the Univer- sity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Angela Cannon in the European Division xiii xiv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS at the Library of Congress, the staff at Tisch Library at Tufts University, the staff at the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley; Octavio Olvera, reader services coordinator, Special Collections, University Research Library at the University of California, Los Angeles; Lynn A. Bonfield, director, and Susan Sherwood, assistant director, at the Labor Archives and Research Center at San Francisco State University; Eugene Dennis Vrana, librarian and archivist at the ILWU Archives; the staff at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace; John Earl Haynes and the entire staff in the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress; the staff at the Pacific Branch of the National Archives in San Bruno, California; the staff at the Tamiment Institute Archives at New York University; and Bob Patenaude, archivist, Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library for Social Research. In addition, I wish to express my thanks to Arch Getty for setting up my trips to Moscow, and to Galina Khartulary, Valery Klokov, and Daria Lotareva for their expert guidance, practical assistance, friendship, and boundless generosity during my visits. I also am grateful for expert translation work to a number of friends, including Kurt Zumbahlen, Jin Yaliang, Chun- mei Yu, Fumiko Hayashi and Sean Nimtz, Zhihui Geng, Yuko Yamade, Masako Nakamura, and especially Mariko Izumi. Finally, my deepest thanks go to my sisters Monique Fowler and Velia Fowler whose love, friendship, and care nurtured me and held me afloat; to my brother-in-law John Vivian for his cheerful willingness to offer